


The Stitches that Bind us Together

by SunflowerSkys



Series: The Stitches that Bind us Together [1]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Based on traditional Japenese embroidery customs, Don't worry, Fire Nation, Fire Nation Royal Family, It Gets Better, Minor Mai/Zuko, Ozai (Avatar) Being a Terrible Parent, Ozai's A+ Parenting, Ty Lee is decended from airbenders, Ursa and Azula don't have a great realationship, Zuko is an Awkward Turtleduck, adding the gaang later, theres some angst in this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-17
Updated: 2020-07-22
Packaged: 2021-03-05 01:02:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,204
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25335835
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SunflowerSkys/pseuds/SunflowerSkys
Summary: Azula looks at it with disdain. ‘What’s this.’ she says in a voice so patronizing that he immediately feels offended.5 year olds have no right to be able to achieve that tonehe thinks indignantly‘It’s a dragon, obviously.’ he huffs. Azula squints at the silk in front of her ‘Are you sure? This looks more like a tiger-eel to me.’ Zuko glares at her. ‘It’s a dragon’ he repeats.Just an idea about embroidery traditions.
Relationships: Azula & Mai (Avatar), Azula & Ty Lee (Avatar), Azula & Zuko (Avatar), Mai & Zuko (Avatar), Ozai & Ursa (Avatar), Ozai & Zuko (Avatar), Ursa & Zuko (Avatar)
Series: The Stitches that Bind us Together [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1842907
Comments: 33
Kudos: 375





	1. The Stitches that Bind us Together

When Zuko was a child, he remembers how the bright colours of the robes worn by the court ladies fascinated him. Each robe was handcrafted carefully, adorned with meticulous patterns, geometric spirals laid out intricately across layers of silk. When nobles moved, their robes would flash in shining colours, deep red and shining gold thread laced into their kimonos, and Agni’s bright light seemed to illuminate them, reflecting off every stich. Everyone had something, even the servants he occasionally saw as they silently served them their meals had small flames on their collars to show their position in the palace.

He wondered out loud to his mother once, why the peasants they visited on their annual trip to the villages spread out from the capitol didn’t wear the same patterns as the ones at home. The clothes he’s seen out of the carraige window are almost plain compared to the palace, none of the elaborate works he sees at home. Ursa laughed when he asked, something she didn’t often do when his father was in earshot. 

‘Only those who live in Court wear their robes like that Zuko,’ She said smiling at him, though it doesn’t quite seem to reach her eyes, leaving something sad lingering there.

‘It’s something reserved for fire nation nobles. When I was a girl, before I lived in the capitol, I embroidered many robes for the court nobles. It was something my mother taught to me before...’ 

There she trailed off, her eyes flitting briefly towards the corner where Ozai sat. He did not seem to be playing attention, engulfed in a long scroll full of elegant calligraphy. ‘…before I was lucky enough to marry your father.’ She continued. 

She paused, looking distracted, as though lost in her deep thoughts. Her hands listlessly stroked through Azula’s hair, who mercifully still seemed to be sleeping. The only sound for the next few minutes was the rattling of the carriage wheels, and the grunting of the Komodo-Rhinos pulling them along. This quiet was short lived, as a jolt of the carriage as they moved over a rougher patch of road woke up Azula, who quickly began a wailing cry from her perch on Ursa’s lap. The moment seemed forgotten, but some part of it lodged itself in Zuko’s mind to be brought up later.

They’re sitting by the Turtle-Duck pond when he brings it up again. Its nearly evening, and the sun has begun its slow climb beneath the horizon, leaving long shadows draped across the ground. 

'Can we visit her sometime?’ he asks, full of childish naivety, tossing chunks of leftover bread into the pond. 

'Visit who?’ Ursa smiles, confused. 

‘Grandma’ Zuko continues heedlessly. 

Again, Ursa looks confused. ‘Your grandmother, Ilah, has been dead for years.’ She says slowly. 

Zuko rolls his eyes, impatient at his mother. 

‘I know that! I wasn’t talking about her; I want to meet your mother!’ 

He smiles, not noticing the way her hands clench the bread she’s holding, crumbling it apart. ‘Then she can teach me like she taught you!’ He continues unheedingly, before smiling at her, pleased with his reasoning. However, Ursa looks sadder than ever. 

'I haven’t seen my mother in a long time.’ She says, in a voice that is almost lost behind the squawking of the squabbling birds. 

'Oh’ Zuko says sadly, ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t know she was dead.’ 

Ursa, staring into the pond, doesn’t seem to have heard him for a minute. Her eyes track the ducks as they follow the mother across the pond. 

'Yes, I suppose she is, in a way.’ She says finally, lifting her head to look at him. Before Zuko can ask what she means by that, she seems to pull herself together. 

‘Lucky I’m here then isn’t it’ she teases, poking him in the stomach so he giggles, forgetting all about the business of lost mothers. 

‘Can you teach me?’ he asks, shyly, afraid of refusals which seem to come his way so often. ‘Of course’ she smiles, like she was never sad. ‘I wouldn’t tell your father though’ she adds schemingly, ‘he may not approve of you learning a commoners craft.’ ‘Don’t worry,’ Zuko grins confidently, ‘I’m great at keeping secrets.’ And so, it begins. The first thing he makes, he gives to Azula. It’s a single dragon; red, crooked, and slightly misshapen. Azula looks at it with disdain. ‘What’s this.’ she says in a voice so patronizing that he immediately feels offended. 

_5 year olds have no right to be able to achieve that tone,_ he thinks indignantly. 

‘It’s a dragon' he huffs. 

Azula squints at the silk in front of her. ‘Are you sure? This looks more like a tiger-eel to me.’ 

Zuko glares at her. ‘It’s a dragon’ he repeats. ‘And if you don’t want it, I’ll just take it back.’ 

He reaches to grab it, but she snatches it away from him. 

‘No! You gave it to me, and its impolite to take back gifts. Besides, what else are you going to do with it? I doubt anyone else would want work this poorly done.’ And with that, she stamps angrily away down the corridor, shoving an unsuspecting servant out of the way, forcing them to perform a truly impressive spin to avoid dropping the tray they’re carrying. Zuko isn’t offended by her words though, as a rarely seems to show affection, and he suspects this is her way of telling him she likes it. A few days later, his suspicions are proved, when Azula thrusts the silk back to him, demanding another dragon to go with the first one; ‘but a blue one this time’ she commands. ‘Everyone knows that the blue dragons were cleverer and stronger than the red ones.’ He complies, and soon there is another misshapen dragon to join the first. 

As time goes on, he gradually sees some improvement. If he’s being honest with himself, he’s not sure he’s got the right temperament for the painstaking work. He can’t stich like Ursa stiches with her gentle hands, but he supposes that it’s almost like a type of meditation, something that he’s always needed practice at to get right. Azula quickly bullies him into making things for Mai and Ty Lee and he doesn’t tell her that he would have done it anyway without her pressure. Ty Lee practically vibrates in excitement when he gives her back her sash, diligently embroidered with orange butterfly-moths. For a minute, he swears the flower-scented wind of the garden pushes him towards her, but then she is talking, and he brushes it off to be forgotten about. ‘They remind me of you.’ Azula tells her. ‘Pretty?’ Ty Lee asks hopefully. ‘An air head.’ Azula replies curtly. Mai gives no indication of liking the sakura-peach blossoms he gives her, but he hears Azula and Ty Lee giggling behind his back, and he thinks he sees her blush. 

He’s always careful to keep his work out of sight of Ozai, which is not too hard as Ozai, being a prince, obviously has more important things to do than to talk too Zuko. He hides the silks under his bed, carefully wrapped up, out of sight until the next time he picks it up. The last thing he gives to Ursa is a shirt, carefully embroidered with delicate carnations, the petals rendered in red and deeper red, like drops of blood. ‘They symbolise love.’ He tells her and she smiles and hugs him like she’ll never let him go. ‘Do I ever tell you how lucky I am to have you?’ she says as his face is buried in her elaborate sleeve. And he laughs, and tries not to think about whether or not she ever hugs Azula like this.

Then when he wakes up a few days later, she is gone, and nothing is the same again.

The funeral robes they wear have patterns stitched in by the fire sages, gold dragons weaving round the white hems and necklines, almost unnoticeable. They are perfectly rendered, not a stich out of place. They say it prevents evil spirits from entering the body. And all he can do is think about how it follows him everywhere, because everywhere he looks, he sees traces of her. The crowd cheers, his father smiles, and Azula’s eyes look darker than ever.

When he opens his door the next morning, there’s a piece of still smouldering silk outside of it. Two dragons, curving and crooked, from which he can just make out the burnt red, and the smoke tinted blue. The material is worn from age, yet there are no stains. The only thing different is the fact that it’s on fire. And he supposes, it’s a sign. Because things are breaking down faster than ever.


	2. Everything Burns (Even People)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ozai looks huge, larger than life, and he towers above him. He has no right, ( _and yet every right_ ) to be here. His voice is like cut glass when he speaks, sharp and harsh. 
> 
> " _What is this._ "
> 
> The voice is cold, collected, not shouted, but he hears every word. There’s no point trying to hide it, so he holds his work up, like an offering to an angry god.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Slight TW for abuse.

It’s hard, Ozai being Fire Lord. The lessons increase, and the teachers get meaner. There’s a gaping hole in his heart where Ursa was, and nothing there to fill it. He doesn’t touch the needles for a while; they remind him too much of her when all he wants to do is forget. She either left him, or she’s dead. He holds out in hope that she’s coming back for him, but the days pass, and the needles gather dust under the bed, untouched. Azula is more distant than ever, her eyes sharper and her voice meaner. Ozai barely spares him a glance, as if his presence is so far beneath him it means nothing. In fact, the only time he seems to speak to Zuko is to reprimand him when he makes mistakes. It’s hard to focus, what with the death/disappearance of three family members in such a short time. _It might as well be four_ , he thinks, as no one has heard from Iroh since he abandoned his siege at Ba Sing Se.

The servants are avoiding him like the plague. He often barely just sees the ends of their clothes as they hurry away from him down the twisting corridors. He imagines rumors have been allowed to circulate around the palace, of Azulon’s suspicious death and Ozai replacing Iroh on the throne. 

(He’s not an idiot, no matter what Azula thinks. He’s studied enough Fire Nation politics to take guesses at what happened that night) 

The only time he sees a servant standing still is at supper. More often than not, he and Azula eat alone, Ozai taking his dinners in his room. He doesn’t know whether its better with or without his father; when he’s there, dinner is held in stony silence. At least Azula talks to him, even if it is just to belittle him. He’s taken to sneaking around the palace to avoid her. He enjoys sticking to the shadows, blending in with the ornate curtains and the stone walls. He likes to pretend he’s one of the heroes from his mother’s plays, silent as a breeze and deadly as a hurricane. He still has her masks hung up in his room. (One can only dream after all). 

His bending is worse than ever, he can barely get the weakest ember to light. It’s even more pathetic in comparison to Azula’s fierce flames, now with blue highlights to his father’s approval. They have private training sessions together, and he can feel the heat from the other side of court. (Afterwards, Azula comes out quieter than usual, more subdued, rubbing burns he’s sure weren’t there before) He’s training with his teacher one day with the hot sun burning down his shoulders, and after a particularly pathetic shower of sparks, he feels the prickle on the back of his neck that lets him know he’s being watched. He risks a glance backwards, and his father is standing behind him, eyes narrowed. He gestures to him to continue the kata, which he does. However, he is off balance, too eager to please, too scared to focus. His sparks flash awry, and he hears a hiss as a stray cinder catches on his father’s robes. Ozai puts it out in an instant, and, moving like a snake, grabs his arm. His eyes are furious, and Zuko is too scared to make a sound, too scared to move. Ozai looks like he’s about to say something, but simply gives him a look of disgust before leaving. He stands alone in the square for at least a degree of the sun; paralyzed. His teacher left when Ozai approached, and he’s glad he’s allowed this short time to breathe. 

Then the pain begins to hit. 

His shirt sleeve has holes burned through it, round and evenly spaced out where a hand grabbed him. All he can think in that moment though, is that it was the destruction of a perfectly good shirt; and how somebodies’ hours of stitching have gone to waste. He walks back to his room, too afraid to ask for bandages he knows that the servants have been ordered not to give. He needs to show strength. The bag from under his bed is dusty as he draws it out, and he holds back a sneeze. He runs himself two bowls of water, and as they fill, he takes out a length of unused fabric. The shirt is ruined, so he takes it off. He dunks his arm in the first bowl, the cool water soothing the sore skin. The second bowl he heats up to near boiling point, before dropping the material in. Everyone knows that fire purifies. He takes the now sterile cloth out and uses it to bind his arm. The amber silk looks almost decorative, like it’s been intentionally wrapped around his arm for fashion or something. He knows he won’t have to keep it there for long though, firebenders don’t burn easily. 

The needles glint at him accusingly as the sun filters in through the window. He takes one out, pricking it against his finger hard enough to hurt. Still sharp. Slowly, he draws out a spool of thread, running the pale gold through his fingers. He barely knows what he’s thinking as he sets it up, hands working almost on memory from all the times he’s done it before. It’s almost repetitive really; the way the needle glides in and out of sight. He feels himself calming down, stitch by stitch, breath by breath. The piece is rubbish because his hands are shaky and he’s out of practice, but he does feel better. If he squints, he can make out the swallow-finch flying across the silk. They say they symbolize hope. 

He soon gets back in the habit of it, but the pieces are for his eyes only now. He would never have before dared to show Ozai, and now wants too even less. He’s rapidly running out of silk though, and Ursa isn’t around to give him more. So, one day, he steadies himself and asks one of the unsuspecting servants that hurry by his door. They stand stock still as he asks; the only movement having been made so far was the bow they made when they saw him coming. 

He finishes his stuttering request, and, seeing the way the servant’s hands quiver, leaves before they can say no. 

However, the next day when he goes to his room, there is a bundle of threads carefully wrapped in rough material. It’s not the same quality he’s used too, the colours are more muted and the thread isn’t as fine, but he supposes it’s the best the servant can do. After all, they aren’t royalty. 

He begins again, and the pictures look rougher, less refined, but that is only to be expected. When he wants more materials, he only has to ask a servant quietly, and the things he want appear in his room by the end of the day. He thinks he enjoys this more than firebending, but if he’s being honest, he enjoys most things more than firebending. The materials stay hidden under his bed during the day, nestled with the single picture he has in his room of Ursa, hidden away from Azula. At night by the light of the small candles he’s lit, he practices, lights flickering in and out in time with his breathing. He makes another swallow and gives it to the servant ( _Aoki,_ their name is _Aoki_ ) to say thank you. They look stunned momentarily, but quickly wipe the look off of their face. They bow to him, lower than ones typically supposed too to a crown prince, but he supposes everyone makes mistakes. 

Everything is going better than it has for a while, which of course means everything has to go wrong, as is the way of things. 

Maybe he is too careless, maybe Azula finally talked, he doesn’t know. He’s practicing when it happens, in the combined light of his candles and the evening sun. Then the illusion of peace is broken when his door slams open with menace. Ozai is framed in the doorway, his face silhouetted in the dying rays of the sun. Zuko looks up from the bed where he sits cross-legged; and feels like a cornered shrew-mouse. Ozai looks huge, larger than life, and he towers above him. He has no right, ( _and yet every right_ ) to be here. His voice is like cut glass when he speaks, sharp and harsh. 

" _What is this_ " 

The voice is cold, collected, not shouted, but he hears every word. There’s no point trying to hide it, so he holds his work up, like an offering to an angry god. Ozai takes it in one hand, looking like he’s been handed a dirty rag. The material catches alight almost immediately, the wooden hoop blackening and the fabric crumpling in on itself. Ozai slaps him, straight across the face. His ears are ringing as Ozai continues to talk, muffling the words. 

“Don’t touch these tools again. You are a _firebender_ and a _prince_ , albeit a pathetically weak one. Act like it.” 

Then he’s gone, and it’s like a storm has passed, yet Zuko still sits tense, muscles seized in a useless attempt to flee, his heart screaming in his chest, waiting for a second wave. He’s just glad there wasn’t fire in that hand. Bruises fade, but burns linger. He supposes that next time he’ll have to be stronger, quicker, cleverer. More like Azula. Then maybe he will be good enough. Ursa left him several hoops before she r̶a̶n̶ ̶a̶w̶a̶y̶ ̶l̶e̶f̶t̶ ̶h̶i̶m̶ ̶a̶l̶o̶n̶e̶ vanished. He’d had a habit of accidently singeing them with impatience when he first started out. The hoop he’d been working with is unsalvageable, burnt through and broken. The material is pale ash. He reaches under his bed and picks up the rest of his supplies, then pries up the loose tile in the intricate floor design. There’s a small space underneath where he’s kept things before, small trinkets; a pretty feather, the ticket from a play. He now carefully slots his things into it. He’ll come back for them; he knows that much. He’s just not sure when ( _maybe when his ears stop ringing and his hands stop shaking_ ). Because it’s better to be reminded of what you’ve lost than to never have had it at all.

**Author's Note:**

> My first A:TLA fic! Rewatched the series recently, and felt inspired to write this. I hope its in character, tell me if i made any mistakes. I may do more if people like it:)


End file.
